Understanding the denial of abuses of human rights connected to sports mega-events^*

* This article draws upon research carried out in Brazil and the UK since 2010. It develops presentations originally given at the University of Brighton in 2013, the Leeds Beckett University in 2016, and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 2013 and 2014.

Abstract

Academics debate the positive and negative consequences of hosting sports mega-events, and although there is a general recognition that doing so cannot be a panacea for solving other social issues, who wins and who loses tends to be the same. This article considers why mega-events are not more regularly resisted given the routinization of harm to local populations that they tend to invoke. It develops ideas derived from the late sociologist and criminologist Stanley Cohen concerning the relationships between, and the politics of, denial and acknowledgement, with specific attention to the role of academics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media. The article illustrates the difficulties in exposing, contesting and transforming these human rights abuses, but suggests that there are grounds for optimism as new strategies for communicating human rights abuses in connection with sports mega-events are developed.

Keywords:

• Mega-events
• human rights
• moral panic
• denial

Notes

* This article draws upon research carried out in Brazil and the UK since 2010. It develops presentations originally given at the University of Brighton in 2013, the Leeds Beckett University in 2016, and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 2013 and 2014.

1. See for example Barbassa, 2015; Boykoff, 2016; Braathen, Mascarenas, & Sorboe, 2015; de Oliveira, 2015; Vainer, Broudehoux, Sanchez, & Oliveira, 2016; Zirin, 2016.

2. After an area was declared for ‘public utility’ and a list of properties was published, city officials promptly visited a favela to inform residents of their eviction and to mark houses with painted signs. ‘SMH’ – the initials of the municipal housing department of Rio de Janeiro – was painted onto the walls of homes in favelas marked for demolition as ‘a sort of officially sanctioned graffiti’ (Bowater, 2015).

3. Oxford Dictionaries announced that ‘post-truth’ was the Word of the Year in 2016, defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’(https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016 [accessed 10 April 2017]).

4. At a conference in Sao Paulo in 2010 that brought together academics and activists from communities preparing to resist the impact of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics I identified ‘7 theses on sports mega-events’ that I thought might be of value to activists. This amounted to a description of some key features of sports mega-events that I felt needed to be understood as the basis for a political campaign. I am not reporting this involvement for the sake of claiming some kind of direct impact for my research, since I would argue that impact is not achieved though one paper alone but a body of evidence. This evidence has accumulated over the past three decades, and involved other forms of writing than the academic, including human rights focussed reports from NGOs.

5. In June 2016, the US-based Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) announced the establishment of a Multi-Stakeholder Steering Committee, chaired by Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, working towards making human rights more central to sports mega-events. But this involves representatives of national governments, sports governing bodies, local organising committees and sponsors (including Adidas, BT and Coca-Cola) as well as trade unions and human rights organisations. Is this too broad a church for an effective strategy?